


Petals

by Wallwalker



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Character Study, Community: 100_leitmotifs, F/M, Ficlet, Funeral, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-02
Updated: 2009-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:39:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/pseuds/Wallwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He still remembers what Rinoa did at her mother's funeral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Petals

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for [100 Leitmotifs](http://community.livejournal.com/100_leitmotifs) at Livejournal.

Caraway didn't remember much about his wife's funeral. It didn't surprise him - he knew that he hadn't been entirely there, too shocked by the way she had died and the horrible realization that he would never be able to ask her to forgive him. He'd gone though the motions in a fog that hid him from the shock and the grief, and that was perhaps for the best, because otherwise he would have been falling apart. The tabloids would have had a field day with that....

The one clear memory that he had was of his daughter in her little black dress, walking up to her mother's coffin with strangely dry eyes. Rinoa had cried for hours before, but now it seemed that she had no tears; maybe she was just too tired to cry anymore, or she thought that Mommy would somehow see her cry and be sad. And in her tiny hands she'd clasped a little bouquet of baby's breath, her favorite flower, tied with a red ribbon the same color as her mother's dress.

Caraway remembered watching Rinoa reach out and touch her mother's face curiously, the made-up face with the deep red lipstick. He remembered her face twisting for a moment, as if she'd been trying to keep the tears from coming back. He'd expected her to do what he'd seen other children do at funerals before, put the flowers quickly beside the coffin and walk away as fast as she could.

Instead, he had watched her curiously as she'd started to tug at the tiny flowers of her bouquet, not having the heart to stop her from destroying them. She had never said a word, had only started pulling the flowers from the bouquet and sprinkling them over her mother's body. She'd watched them fall, spiraling down from between her fingers before they'd settled in her mother's hair and on her dress, like snow.

Julia had loved snow, he'd remembered with a sudden pang. And Rinoa had remembered, even as such a young child...

He'd decided not to brush the petals away. As far as he knew, Julia had been buried with them.


End file.
